One new flat in Skopje's Centar municipality sold for 3,360 euros per square metre. For fifty square metres, bought straight from the developer, that came to 168,000 euros. It is the record for the second quarter of this year.

At the same time, the number of registered residential rental agreements fell by 14 percent. Both things are happening in the same market, in the same three months.

What the numbers show

The Register of Prices and Rents recorded 2,148 rental contracts for April to June, a drop of 17 percent compared with the first quarter. For flats the fall is 14 percent, for houses as much as 24 percent. Even so, the total monthly value of all rents rose by nine percent, reaching 76.2 million denars, roughly 1.2 million euros.

Fewer contracts, more money. Meaning: those who do rent are paying more per contract.

Average monthly rent per square metre: Centar 408 denars, Aerodrom 375, Karpoš 354, Kisela Voda 326, Štip 266. Centar recorded the most rentals (286), followed by Aerodrom (197), Karpoš (173) and Bitola (129).

Buying, meanwhile, is flying

On the other side of the same market, the second quarter registered a total of 8,369 transactions - up 7.9 percent. Their combined value reached 351.7 million euros, 27.3 percent more than the previous quarter. The number of flats sold rose by 37 percent, and their value by 43 percent.

Among older flats, the highest price per square metre was recorded in Ohrid - 3,200 euros, or 211,200 euros for a 66-square-metre flat. The most flats were sold in Aerodrom (297), the most houses in Bitola (64).

Developers sold 977 properties, 943 of them flats. On top of that, 28,352 pre-registration sheets for construction were filed - buildings still going up that will soon be on the market.

Where the two curves meet

The value of sales is rising faster than the number of transactions. Which means not only that more is being sold, but that it is being sold at higher prices. And on the rental side, the number of contracts falls while the total sum climbs.

Official statistics do not explain why. But for anyone hunting for a flat in Skopje, the arithmetic is familiar: when a square metre in Centar costs what it costs, and rent per square metre there is the highest in the country, the choice between buying and renting on an average wage is not much of a choice.

Garage sales are up 34 percent. Building land up 16 percent. Someone is building, someone is buying, someone is pre-registering 28,000 new properties. The question no report answers: who are those flats being built for, if the number of people able to pay rent is falling every quarter?